A Nigerian Twist On BKChatLDN? GreyRoomNG Debut

We all followed BK Chat LDN or at least heard about it while it was on. The show was less than traditional in its brutally honest manner which aimed to give black people in London an authentic and untampered voice by documenting their conversations that ranged widely from racism to sex to body image.

It looks like here in Nigeria, we are getting our own version of this calledThe Grey Room on which was released on October 2nd.

As Nigerians, we have a very rigid moral structure, which teaches people to play to the gallery and always be in tune with ‘Nigerian’ traditions. As a result, a lot of Nigerian youth have misguided opinions, lack critical thinking skills and like to show it off often. Ideally, this platform should serve as a safe space for young people to air their thoughts honestly, have misconceptions corrected and for us in the audience to also learn from it.

The Grey Room

The cast of The Grey Room is made up of four guys and four girls who very loudly tackle this topic with varying controversial views. The debate basically only included two people (Chioma and Sharon), while two others (Lade and Teni) piped in every now and then. Given that this was a topic about men, the guys in the room (Chris, Edet, Folusho and Cordell) had very little to say about it and that could be indicative of the fact that men have internalised this construct.

We think that even though they made some good points, their arguments were not intelligent and cohesive enough. It was also a bit strange that there was no conclusion – the conversation just kind of ended and there was no closure for the audience. All in all, from this first episode it seems as though this cast of The Grey Room lacks cognitive ability – in other words, the range.

In this episode, the cast talks about how fair it is that men bear the brunt of paying most/all of the bills in a conventional household.